Prokofiev 3 Comes to Den Norske Opera With Isata Kanneh-Mason

The Norwegian National Opera Orchestra welcomes the summer with the British it pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason – under the musical direction of the chief conductor of Finland’s National Opera, Hannu Lintu.

The Norwegian National Opera Orchestra and conductor Hannu Lintu will be shining the spotlight on the British rising star Isata Kanneh-Mason as they conclude the concert season with Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and Mahler’s Symphony No. 5.  

Pianist phenomenon from Nottingham 

Isata Kanneh-Mason is considered an it girl in the British classical music scene. This 25-year-old Nottingham native comes from an exceptionally musical family of six siblings, which Simon Cowell called England’s most talented family when the entire gang performed on Britain’s Got Talent under the stage name of ‘The Kanneh-Masons’.  

Yet she is most renowned for her debut album Romance – a tribute to Clara Schumann – which propelled her right to the top of the music charts for classical music in 2019. For her debut at the Oslo Opera House, she will be performing the hugely popular piano piece Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3.  

Prokofiev’s most popular 

Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto is among his most popular works. The Russian Revolution forced the composer to flee the country and he completed the concerto on settling into his new life in Paris in 1921.  

The concerto is known for demanding a dextrous and persistent soloist – therefore ranking at the top of the list of most virtuoso concertos that a pianist can perform.  

Mahler’s life and death 

In Gustav Mahler’s musical portrait of humanity, death is often the underlying tone. The death of a brother is central to Das Klagende Lied and the loss of his own child to Kindertotenlieder, while ‘What I learned from death’ has become the subtitle of his Symphony No. 9 – with the composer’s own death putting an abrupt end to his tenth in the spring of 1911.  

His Fifth Symphony was the result of a near-death experience, which can clearly be heard in the piece, as it opens with a funeral march.   

But although death was also the prerequisite for this work, he has enveloped it in life and the symphony shines with a life-affirming joy of creation.

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